PI Boat Registration Requirements, Pitfalls & Penalties

[Gone2long]

Hello Thread mates,

Wondering what the law actually is in terms of what type and size craft needs to be registered in the Phillipines.

A foreigner living here has a pocket cruiser for sale, which is small enough to be trailerable, but which has an inboard diesel. Yet, the owner tells me that "salilboats" (like his) don't need to be registered in the Phillipines.

Frankly, the owner's testimony sounds like something of a "tall tail", however, searching around PI government sites, I have not been able to find anything definitive about what actually needs to be registered and what doesn't.

Also, apparently this boat for sale was cruised to PI from Canada by a Canadian, then sold here to its current owner who is also a Canadian. To my knowledge it has never been sailed out of the PI and has been here since 2005 or so, currently sitting in a backyard on a trailer. It may have been originally "registered" with the Canadian government, but a search of the government registration files shows no such boat; so, if it had been registered, which is probable in order for it to have sailed so far, the registration most likely expired many years ago and has been expunged by the Canadian government, who require yearly registration renewal and who only maintain their back records for seven years. The current owner says he "registered" the boat in his name in 2006 and 2007, however, his "registration" appears merely to be a provincial licensing form, which, unlike national registration, does not actually prove ownership, and, on top of that, he has not kept up the licensing.

As if this weren't murky enough, wouldn't all the above add up to some kind of violation of Phillipine law? The boat would have been welcomed here as a "visiting yacht", but as such, wouldn't it have been required to leave every six months or so, clearing out of customs then coming back in again?

If that hasn't been done, wouldn't there be penalties and/or legal ramifications for any new owner? If so, what would they entail? This is one of two boats I am currently investigating, but my guess is that buying such a craft would not be a wise move; so I thought that I would raise the topic here to see what others thought and hopefully to get an educated opinion on the actual regs.

Any comments or advice would be greatly appreciated, and if anyone knows which Phillipine agencies might be able to give me some reliable feedback on such issues, please let me know.

Thanks to all,

G2L